A film of the January 10, 1973 Genesis concert at the Bataclan in Paris, France has been circulating within the fan community for years, but the good folks at the Genesis Museum recently shared a 4K restoration that is a stunning improvement on everything what has been seen before. Simply put, it’s the most pristine video of a Peter Gabriel era show ever to surfaced.
“This was a very big project,” the Genesis Museum noted on YouTube. “Not that the source was bad; the source was actually very nice. However, the well had many anomalies, but there was enough ‘clay’ to mold this into something even better. The whole process was greatly helped by Ikhnaton, [the user name of the person who uploaded the concert], which provided material as well as suggestions and many examples. “
Unfortunately the concert is not complete. The only full track is ‘The Musical Box’, and even that includes a short audio patch from the 1973 LP Genesis Live because there was no sound at the beginning of the recording. It is followed by the first half of ‘Supper’s Ready’ and major pieces of ‘Return of the Giant Hogweed’ and ‘The Knife’. It ends with a backstage interview that is difficult to hear as a narrator translates their words into French.
Despite these limitations, the film still captures the incredible energy and intensity of an early Genesis show. The camera crew roams the stage, presenting the action from all angles, even behind Phil Collins ‘drum kit and Tony Banks’ keyboard installation. Their show at Shepperton Studios in October of the same year was fully recorded, but the lighting is poor and it lacks the intimacy and aggression of this Parisian performance.
This was the Foxtrot tour and Gabriel had just started incorporating costumes into the show. After seven minutes, he comes out in his wife’s red dress and fox head to sing the culmination of ‘The Musical Box’. He started doing this just four months earlier, and it earned him a spot on the cover of Melody Maker, the band’s first major press.
“I think very few people had seen a man in a dress at the time,” Gabriel says in the official Genesis book. Chapter and verse, “And certainly not one with a fox’s head. There was a shock and it was very exciting. And I thought, “We’re on to something.” ”
Gabriel left Genesis at the completion of 1974/75 Lamb is on Broadway tour. That show included a complete performance of The lamb at all 104 tour stops and was the most extensive production they had ever attempted. In a decision they regretted, they never bothered to film it. Fortunately, they were better at documenting earlier eras. Let’s hope they don’t ask YouTube to stop this concert in Paris. It deserves to be seen far and wide.